Volume 1 Recap
Issue 1 Lorna wakes Natalie, getting her ready for a day at school. Following a shower, Nat eats breakfast with Carrie and suggests they go to Shelly Iverson's party following the end of the school day. Natalie asks for an additional pudding, but teasing from her girlfriend convinces her to go without. On the bus, Nat & Cat find out that their friends have been getting bullied by Cedric, Alliston and Coul, and come up with a plan to escort them to and from classes throughout the day, preventing the hooligans from harassing them. Cedric's gang realize what's going on and carry out a plot to steal the school lunches, ensuring that come lunch time, the girls will be too involved trying to solve this mystery to continue protecting their friends. This plan works, and a fight in the lunch room follows. Nat & Cat win the altercation, but just as they're celebrating via kiss, a series of loud booms occur and the Principal warns the children that they all have to leave. Issue 2 Natalie wakes up in the collapsed remnants of the lunch room, trapped inside. Using some ingenuity and a can of carbolate, she manages to move a vending machine and makes her way out of it. Carrie, in the school library, is trapped under bricks and books, having worked to free Bo's little brother in the chaos. Using momentum to topple bookshelves and knock away just enough debris to stand up, she makes her way to find Natalie. Wandering around outside the lunchroom, Natalie is suddenly driven back by a Crawler to the opposite end of the lunch room, where she finds her PET, sans battery. Much to her mixed hope, she also finds Carrie's and sends a message to the rest of her pack, letting them know to meet them at the Burger Dictator. She makes her way to the Principal's office and takes one of the confiscated batteries that fits her PET's model. Determining that her friends and family are alive, she redoubles her efforts to find Carrie. Climbing up a vent, Carrie is attacked by a Grabber, which she fends off with kicks and finally by biting into its tendril. After surveying the rooftop, she dives into the school's pool from above and makes her way to the locker room, drying off and changing into a swimsuit that's too small for her before making her way to the playground. They call for one another, but just before they can reunite, Carrie is pressed into the earth by a Stomper. At first this looks to be lethal, but Carrie survives the incident, to Natalie's great relief. Issue 3 Carrie and Natalie talk about the fact that Cat survived being stomped, and Nat recalls the near-fatal incident of Carrie being struck by a vehicle when she was ten years old without so much as a serious injury. Carrie is reluctant to accept this, but Natalie encourages her, and they leave to meet with their friends. During their journey, the girls are assaulted by a mob of Shufflers. Using their combined fighting skills, they don't manage to win, but are able to fend them off long enough to outrun their assailants. They get caught in the rain on the way, and while taking shelter, they talk about the creatures they've encountered, giving them rudimentary names. Erwin, Max, Sam, Cedric, Alliston, Coul, Hugh, Margaret, Lorna and Officer Tisdale are holed up inside the Burger Dictator. The others help Hugh feel less upset, while Lorna gets the machinery working and helps prepare food for everyone. Cedric has reservations about this situation entirely, going outside to walk in the rain, but Alliston and Coul are happy to take shelter, and have sex in the slide housing. Hugh becomes angry with Tisdale for not doing more to find Carrie, but Lorna intercedes and reaffirms that they're all in this together. Nat and Cat show up to everyone's relief, and recount their experiences as they eat. After a conversation about the validity of Shelly Iverson's breasts, sleeping pads are doled out, and Nat and Cat retire to the playroom, where they chase each other playfully, have sex in the ball pit and finally fall asleep. Natalie wakes up to find the restaurant empty, and is assaulted, beaten and almost killed by a pink doppelganger of herself. Issue 4 Natalie awakens to find that her assault was merely a dream, and that Coul and Alliston were in the ball pit as well the previous night. The two give Nat & Cat a cryptic warning before leaving. Upon rejoining the group, Lorna explains to them all that the Climate Control Center has been damaged and will slowly but surely create apocalyptic weather phenomena if left unchecked. Before Natalie can volunteer for a mission to go fix it, Cedric interrupts and insists instead they should re-militarize. During the argument, Cedric disables Officer Tisdale and a fight erupts between the two groups. Cedric now displays the ability to fire magma from his hands, Alliston is able to manipulate frost, and Coul can become completely invisible. The kids use Cedric's gang's abilities against them, and fend them off. Cedric and company leave, but before they do, Coul shoves Natalie onto a gout of lava on the floor, singing her flesh. In the confusion, Samantha locks lips with Natalie and the wolf's wounds close, displaying that Sam has some sort of healing power. Galvanized by their victory over the bully, they all make preparations to travel to the Climate Control Center and repair it. Issue 5 The group set out on their journey to the middle of Locksmouth, determining that pack alpha Natalie should take a prominent and more decisive leader role in their mission, as they all trust her implicitly. In the middle of discussing this, Culby Hendrix appears and attacks all of them with a navy blue inkling. Natalie is knocked out during the conflict. Inside of her mind, a strange creature similar to the one that attacked her in her dream the previous night accosts her. It doesn't know its name or nature, but it knows it is a part of her. Natalie is immediately suspicious, but doesn't have long to think about it before she regains consciousness, having been healed by Sam from an apparently very dangerous injury. Erwin discovers at this point that he has some measure of extremely limited precognitive abilities, able to direct Max in a way that confounds Hendrix. For his effort, she throws Max away and breaks Erwin's arm. Using the creature's own arrogance against it, Natalie and Max manage to disable Ms. Hendrix, who mysteriously disappears. Fashioning a makeshift stretcher for the ferret out of sticks and clothing, they make their way into the sub-tran tunnel. Issue 6 Using clever tricks with smart fabric in their clothing and PETs, Erwin's arm is set and healed by Samantha. During this process, Natalie explains the gooey doppelganger she has, and her friends urge her to try to communicate with it. This attempt works, miraculously, and the creature speaks with her, then all of them, explaining that it still doesn't remember most specific things about itself, but that it is indeed part of a race of other creatures like the one that took over Ms. Hendrix. It also explains that it has special abiltiies, but it can't remember what they are. Taking a final warning not to ever assert control over Natalie, it recedes, and they make their way to the Nature Preserve. Not far into the preserve, the teens are attacked by several monsters they've seen before. They manage to fend them off with a combination of powers and fighting abilities, traveling into the inner preserve. There, several familiar classmates and citizens appear, trying to assimilate Natalie unsuccessfully. Ms. Hendrix reappears with a Stomper and orders it to crush them. Carrie just manages to keep it from doing so, until the pressure breaks an unseen door under their feet, sending them all plummeting. Issue 7 At the end of a long fall into water, the teenagers find themselves in an underground facility referred to as Nhilation Labs, records of which date back to the Pre-Splice Petroleum era of 2015. Carrie wanders off to a room full of tubes with Natalie, and has a crisis of confidence in their chances, pointing out that even with inexplicable superpowers, they've had to retreat in every battle they've waged. Mirroring their talk in the locker room, Natalie doesn't want to accept this, but follows Carrie out. While they're discussing events, an intruding figure confuses them all: a pre-splice human introducing himself as Jacent Danger- otherwise known very well to Natalie as the once-thought-fictional Cap'n Comet. The surreality of this situation combined with all of the other threats they've faced makes them all suspicious until he raises their morale and breaks down the door imprisoning them. Jacent is given a crash course in what's happened since he was frozen, which causes him to take their side immediately, promising to help. Natalie asks if he would like to be the leader, and he declines, recognizing that she already has the other teens' respect and trust. Reinvigorated, they make their way toward the surface and the Climate Control Center. Issue 8 Natalie and friends find themselves in an ambush of monsters at the CCC. During the fight, Carrie is dog-piled and covered in grey goo. On the urging of the alien who resides within her, Natalie touches Carrie during this and both fall unconscious. Jacent fends off the attackers until the teens can make their way inside. Natalie wakes up inside of Carrie's mind, finding out that the alien's name is Echelon, and she is from a race of beings known, when bonded, as the Inked. With some hesitation, Echelon utilizes an ability that allows her to travel through mirrors in order to find Carrie. Inside the Climate Center, Natalie's friends fret about what to do. Jacent, stumbling in after having routed the monsters, talks them into persevering as he is healed of a broken rib by Samantha. A misunderstanding leads to an unexpected, but not necessarily unwanted kiss between the two. Inside of her own mind, Carrie has devolved into a childlike state, wracked with fear toward the intruders into her dream space. Cat is distrustful of Natalie, who is covered in ink like the others, but Natalie recalls their life events together: Meeting in a fight over a comic book, growing up to become inseparable and engaging in a super powered version of playing House, and confessing their feelings to each other on Hallowed Halls Eve. Carrie is able to regain her sense of age and self, but Echelon activates deep-seated anxieties that have plagued Carrie for years. She is seemingly lost to the grey inklings, but the cat makes a comeback, throwing them off of herself, now covered in a white Inked skin and declaring herself to be a monster just like the rest of them. Issue 9 Whilst wandering around the CCC, Jacent picks up and answers Natalie's ringing PET. Lorna demands to know what's happened to her daughter, and has the situation up to this point explained by Natalie's packmates, who impress upon her the importance of repairing the Weather Control Unit. Meanwhile, back in her dreamscape, Carrie reveals to Natalie that she's been aware of her inkling, Arus, since they were ten years old- back when the inexplicable comet hit the Locksmouth dome and shattered. Arus was the reason she survived being hit by the vehicle shortly after, and Carrie, though not understanding the inkling's full nature, would occasionally spy her in the mirror and knew something was amiss, but simply suppressed this out of fear. This manifested into a fear of herself, and affected how she saw herself, to say nothing of how it painted the inklings. Natalie, Arus and Echelon convince her with some effort that the inklings are here to help, not harm- with the exception of Empress Osoth, whom the Greys reveal to be the leader behind this invasion force. The two of them wake up in the middle of a similar conversation being had by Jacent and their packmates. Carrie and Natalie have a moment of nostalgia between themselves and Jacent, who gifts Natalie with his arm bracers in a bid to protect her knuckles in future battles. Conferencing in their parents after the Weather Control Unit has been repaired, Nat & Cat recap their adventure up to this point. Following a strong suggestion to come back home, the girls introduce Arus and Echelon. The aliens introduce themselves to the suspicious parents, explaining that they are a race of beings that require hosts in order to survive, and they came in on a comet in order to stop Osoth's invasion, supposing that their other allies must have perished on the way. On Lorna's request, they reveal that inklings can be removed from hosts via consistent repeated impacts. After Jacent, Arus and Echelon promise Hugh that they will protect Carrie and Natalie, Lorna warns the girls that they must not let anyone know about the inklings inhabiting them, lest something tragic befall them considering the nature of the invasion. During a moment of downtime, Jacent is briefly introduced to the concept of packs and OC. Before he can explore the concepts much further, however, Max comes in and warns of a monster attack in the break room. Upon kicking the door down, they find no monsters, but happen upon Shelly Iverson, hiding in a cabinet. The butterfly pretends not to know Carrie, but ingratiates herself to Natalie and her friends, who promise to keep her safe. It's at this point that Sully, a friend of Max's, walks in, inks over completely and does battle with the teens. At first, it's simply Laibon, against whom Nat & Cat do fairly well. Partway through the fight, Natalie performs a number of acrobatic attacks that she denotes are Jacent's, and somewhat correctly deduces that Echelon's powers are allowing her to do so. Laibon uses his powers to summon creatures colloquially referred to as Lockjaws, one of which imprisons Shelly, but she is quickly freed by Jacent. Midway through the fight, the Lockjaws change tactics, and Samantha steps on one's open mouth, having her entire leg bitten off in a ghastly display. Jacent's fighting intensifies and he finishes off the creatures, fighting Laibon to a standstill. Natalie searches her feelings for understanding, and eventually comes to the correct conclusion that Echelon's powers are to copy other inklings' abilities. Using this knowledge, she stabilizes Sam, at which point Carrie teams up with Jacent to completely defeat Laibon, ripping him off of Sully, who is now horrified at what he unwillingly did to the unconscious but still alive Samantha. Issue 10 Shelly, Jacent and Nat's pack take a mass-trans away from the Climate Control Center with Sully at the engine. Carrie finds Jacent treating his wounds and asks him why he didn't fight as hard as he could. Jacent apologizes, which Carrie balks at, engaging in some playful shoving to lighten the mood and revealing that Samantha's leg should regrow in a month or two, given that this is typical of post-splice humans. After Natalie joins in on tickling Carrie, they agree to move to the dining car. Carrie teases Jacent after balking at another apology, explaining that their pack is very hands-on. Natalie agrees but is struck by a crisis of confidence. Carrie and Jacent- with the help of some silly antics- reassure her that they can still win against this Osoth figure. Jacent is momentarily embarrassed to have stared at Natalie's body, but when she tries to promise to be careful not to offend his archaic sensibilities, he insists that none of them should do so, and it is he who should adjust. Natalie then explains the basis of Echelon's superpowers to both of them. Meanwhile, in the previous car, Samantha is having a dream, which is interrupted by a pink and white inkling shaped like her. Erwin and Max show up in her dream as well, with their own inkling doubles. They introduce themselves as Mhend, Phactys and Koralo, and explain that they, too, were brought in by Echelon's comet, and sought the kids as hosts, explaining the origins of their powers. The inklings are lukewarm on the idea of their chances in overcoming Osoth, and ask their hosts what they plan to do. Erwin, Max and Samantha reiterate their commitment to Natalie and promise to help any way they can. Natalie further explains to Cat and Jace that her powers require her to touch a person to copy their powers, and that ultimately this copy will be slightly inferior to the original. During her explanation, Jacent gives Carrie his boots, which are heavy and complement her weighty fighting style. This prompts Carrie to give Natalie her hair bow, so as to ensure that Natalie always has access to her invulnerability. She also gives Jacent her spare PET from childhood, instructing him to keep it. In the midst of their conversation, Samantha barges in and warns that there's something attacking the train. This something turns out to be a sea drake, which Carrie, Natalie and Jacent manage to fight off, supposing that it's an agent of Osoth's plans. No sooner do they relax, however, than the creature comes back and pulls Jacent out of the train and out of sight. Issue 11 Jacent, Carrie and Natalie fight the sea drake on top of the train. Natalie uses Jacent's powers and successfully drives it off, but in doing so, launches herself off the train. Gambling on Echelon's effectiveness, she uses Arus' powers to survive the landing, and wakes up on top of a building in great deals of pain but otherwise unharmed. She finds Grendolyn Murcbee, who explains that she came from a survivors' camp in Park Circle, but went out when she found out via her grandfather that the camp had run out of food, and in the middle of her exploration was stranded on top of the roof by monsters. Natalie comforts the girl and promises to protect her from the threats, escorting her back to camp. Meanwhile, Carrie and Jacent split off from the rest of the group to go after Natalie, jumping off of the train and using his more experienced handle on his powers to soften the landing, Carrie in tow. Upon landing, they realize it's snowing. Carrie gives him one of her shirts so that he has an article of clothing with threadlinks in it, and shows him how to heat his clothing. They call Natalie, updating each other on their situations, when Lorna calls as well and explains that the survivors at Burger Dictator- now including Samantha's parents Vincent and Diane- are out of medical supplies and in need of help. Jacent agrees to let Carrie go meet Natalie while he gathers the supplies. Carrie beats a path through the most dangerous route to Park Circle, beating and destroying as many monsters as she can. Natalie comes across Shelly, who explains that she, too, has an inkling (Lastik, as it turns out), and wanted to save her father, but could find him nowhere. She then gives the wolf a lock of her hair, and therefore, access to her powers. Venturing out, she quickly finds herself and Gren surrounded by monsters, but fishing through Gren's backpack, finds and uses a yo-yo to defeat them, as was common for Jacent to do. When she finally reaches Park Circle, she finds that some of the citizens are now heavily armed with weapons and armor once thought destroyed during the Great Disarming... and they're being organized by Cedric.